


A Rose

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Thessalian witch: her relationship with Morpheus and why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rose

  
**Title:** A Rose  
**Day/Theme:** February 05 / the golden apple  
**Series:** Sandman  
**Character/Pairing:** Thessaly/Dream  
**Rating:** G  
When she lived in Thessaly, her name was different. When she lived in Thessaly, she was not alone, as she is now, for she had sisters, wise in the ancient ways, and mothers who were wiser still. (Now she is the wisest and she cannot fathom how the others could have been so careless as to lose it all. Perhaps it was sentimentality.)

When she lived in Thessaly, she heard stories about an apple.

It was no ordinary apple, as ordinary apples do not start decade long wars (unless one counts scientific debate as 'war' in which case Newton should have moved before the apple reached his head). Of course it wasn't. When one plays with the Gods such props are to be expected, along with underhanded tactics and political machinations. The rest of it – the great love the poets sing of and the acclaimed fury of the battle – are merely trappings. Sentiment is overrated, she had believed then, and there is no reason to change that belief now.

In the game, she has always sought to be the untouchable, the unusable piece, for it would not suit her to be a pawn, witting or not. She is not Helen, nor Paris, nor Odysseus, nor Hektor, nor Andromache. She is a Thessalian witch and her only homage she will pay to the moon.

There are things worse than the gods, but to stay out of their way is not so difficult. Gods are born of human imagination, not human need, and one but needs to cast a stone to hit a god of any colour. Those born of human need are more elusive, and some do not even play games, or so she thought.

She called herself Thessaly once, and she lived in an apartment in New York where she met a Cuckoo whom she would still have preferred to kill, but there is no accounting for taste. 'Thessaly', for she is the only one left of that order, and along with sentiment of long ago, she has lost her original name. She does not regret it.

Names are not important. It is enough to know roughly who and what a possible adversary may be, but names are not important, save for the Cuckoo Incident, where she might have guessed that Murphy was Morpheus, but ultimately it should not have mattered.

Only it had mattered, because they had met again, and Morpheus was no longer one of the faceless beings born of need, but a man

with a face.

who was lonely.

who courted her very nicely, as no one had done since.

'Morpheus' became her lover, and he courted her with roses. 'Morpheus' was not an unknown. 'Morpheus' became synonymous with affection and stability and abandonment.

He had courted her with roses and she, a fool, had accepted them. This was not the course of the wise, or of those who sought to remain untouchable. This was not the course of one who had watched history repeat and who had vowed to never accept such a challenge as a golden apple.

So she had left. 'Thessaly' was gone, and Morpheus had not pursued.

She is at school now, where she watches the young be young and she watches herself fall into 'Larissa'. Larissa has no time for courtship games and Larissa has no time to be made a fool of. A rose by any other name, she reads, but then the meaning of 'rose' can change very drastically. It already has for Larissa, who will not be a pawn. Sentiment is overrated, she says aloud.

"Are you joking?" asks a one half of a passing couple in disbelief.

Larissa says no, she has no sense of humour.


End file.
